


Platinum

by Basingstoke



Category: Smallville
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2001-12-14
Updated: 2001-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-03 14:26:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basingstoke/pseuds/Basingstoke





	1. Chapter 1

She had never in her life worn this many jewels.

There was the engagement ring on her finger: a round diamond surrounded by dark emeralds cut in the shape of leaves, set in platinum. Gorgeous. Tasteful. Expensive.

There were the pins holding up her hair. The bracelet on the opposite wrist as the engagement ring. And, of course, the diamond necklace Lionel had given her for Christmas.

She'd never even *touched* this many jewels before. Her mother had given her a pair of diamond stud earrings when she graduated from college, and that was all she could remember. She'd resigned herself to the typical life of a concert violist: incognito and poor, but filled with music and beauty. That was enough.

And then, like a fairy tale or a movie of the week, she met Lionel Luthor. It was a benefit at the Metropolis Opera House. She'd pplayed and he'd attended. Afterwards, the musicians were graciously allowed to mingle. She hadn't known who he was, at first--he hadn't told her his last name, just asked her to dance. Told her she was the most striking woman in the room. Didn't laugh at the viola or think she said "violin."

Big things and little things that led to a romance.

She'd broken things off when she twigged to who he was. It was too much--just too much in general. But he'd called her late at night and they'd had a conversation that lasted until three in the morning, and next week, after she thought it over, they started dating again.

Now they were engaged and she was beginning to learn about the things that came with Lionel Luthor. A castle, for God's sake. A son that lived in that castle. A dead wife that Lionel refused to speak about.

She was looking for the son now. She knew he was there, somewhere in the middle of Lionel's New Year's Eve party.

He hated her, and she couldn't really blame him; his mother had died, after all, and he had always been an only child, the only one in his father's affections. Still, it hurt, and she hoped she could smooth things over a little. Maybe. She had to *try*.

She was only thirty-one to his twenty-two. She couldn't decide if that helped or not. She definitely wasn't going to try to be his mother; maybe she could be his friend.

The clicks of her heels echoed through the halls like the ghosts of gunfire. She'd been living in Lionel's Metropolis house--he had *six* houses, counting the castle, and even more apartments and vacation getaways--for two weeks and only barely knew her way around. She was fairly certain she was lost.

She rounded the corner and found Lex standing before a painting with a flute of champagne in his hand. "Lex! Help me, I'm lost," she laughed.

He turned. His face was like stone. "Lydia. The party is down the hall. Dad will be missing you."

He looked fierce as she approached--a warrior made out of marble and black granite. He was wearing a modern tuxedo with a thigh-length coat, a band-collared shirt, and an onyx pin at his throat. Black on black on black.

"I was actually hoping to talk to you," she said.

"About what?" His face didn't flicker.

"I know you don't like me."

"Don't be silly." His eyes are like gimlets, skewering her.

"Come on, Lex, don't patronize me. I can tell when people don't like me. I was in an orchestra." She tried a smile, but he didn't respond.

"Why on earth wouldn't I like you? You're my father's fiancee," he said. "I wish you only the best."

"Lex. Please." She touched his arm. And this time he moved, drawing up his chin slightly so that he was looking down his nose. He was only a couple of inches taller but he made them count.

She gave up. She wasn't used to this kind of war--or, well, she was, but she was never very good at it. "Okay. Happy New Year, Lex. I hope you'll stay a little longer than at Christmas. I really do want to get to know you."

"We'll see," he said. "I have a business to run." He took a sip of champagne and turned away.

Well, she tried. She tried.

Now she had to figure out which hallway Lex meant when he said the party was right down it. She came from the left-hand path, so it was either right or center. She stood between them, wavering.

"You're wearing her necklace."

She wasn't sure at first that it was Lex that had spoken, since he hadn't moved away from the painting on the wall. "What?"

"Or properly, my necklace. She left it to me in her will." She could see his lips move this time. She touched the diamonds at her throat.

"Her jewelry was all intended to go to my wife. She left it in the care of my father, though, since she loved him." He sipped from his glass. "Giving the necklace to you is my father's comment that he thinks I'll never marry."

"I'm sorry...?"

"I'm queer," Lex said.

"Oh." It was *far* from the first time that someone had come out to her, but...she wasn't quite sure what to make of that.

"It's also her dress," Lex said, and drained his glass.

She opened and closed her mouth. "No, this was made for me." The seamstress had come to take embarassingly detailed measurements. The dress fit like a glove.

"Did you even look at this portrait?" Lex said. He finally turned to face her, taking a step back from the painting on the wall. Her heels were hesitant and the sound enormous.

The man in the portrait was unmistakeably Lionel. His hair was short and he was beardless, but she'd know his toothy grin and the glint in his eyes anywhere.

The woman had flaming red hair. She was holding an infant--Lex, she supposed. She was wearing--the necklace. She was dressed--in Lydia's deep-cut green velvet dress, identical down to the diamonds on the bodice.

"Oh, my God."

"It's like some ridiculous Gothic three-decker novel," Lex said. "Next I suppose I'm supposed to go mad and be locked into the attic with only a silent manservant to attend me."

She laughed, even though she shouldn't; his voice was dark and bitter. She covered her mouth with her hand and looked at him.

"Are you pregnant yet?"

"What!" She didn't touch her belly. He couldn't possibly know. She was only two months along, too early to announce.

"Dad would want to be sure you were fertile. It would be stupid to go through all the trouble of remarrying and not come up with another heir."

Lionel had asked her to marry him immediately after she'd told him she missed her period. She felt faint. "Lex..."

"I'm well aware that I'm being written out of this novel," Lex said. "Be aware that I won't go easily."

She swallowed around the heart in her throat. Down one of the hallways, people were counting down to the new year.

"Come on," Lex said, his voice softer. He took her arm. She clung to it gratefully, still feeling dizzy.

He led her down the right-hand hallway. "I don't hate you, Lydia. I feel sorry for you. You're marrying him, and you don't know him at all."

But she knew him. Of course she knew him. They'd talked--

They'd talked for two months before she ever learned how old his son was.

He opened a door and they were surrounded by the joyful noise of the party. He looked at her; smiled; leaned in.

"If you let him name the baby Lionel Junior, it'll be war."

But he wouldn't. He *wouldn't.* He *couldn't.*

Could he?

The ball dropped. The room exploded in cheers.

Lex kissed her cheek. She realized and turned toward him too late; he had already straightened up. "I'm going back to Smallville," he shouted over the din. "Say goodnight to Dad for me."

She nodded, dazed. He disengaged her hand from his sleeve and ducked back out the door.

12:01 am, 1st January, 2003.

She fainted.


	2. Chapter 2

Lia Luthor stood in the doorway glaring at Clark. "Are you a reporter?"

"Yes. I'm from the Daily Planet," Clark said.

She made a face and kicked him in the shin, then punched him in the nose when he folded over in shock. "Go away! Vulture! My daddy's dead! I don't wanna talk about it!"

Clark backed off. "Your brother invited me!"

"Liar! You're all stupid liars!" She ran at him with her fists clenched and Clark backed up further.

Lex Luthor appeared in the doorway and quickly swooped down, catching his little sister around the waist and swinging her into his arms. "Lia! Clark is a guest."

Lia burst into tears. She flailed at his face with her fists and pounded his hips with her heels; Lex turned his face away but didn't drop her. He carried her back into the house.

Clark followed, feeling a little sad at Lionel Luthor's death for the first time.

Lex stood in the doorway stroking his sister's hair as she sobbed on his shoulder. He caught Clark's eye and held out his hand; Clark stayed put.

An older woman hurried down the hallway, flanked by a few other people, and ran to take Lia from Lex's arms. She carried the girl up the main stairs of the castle and down the hallway leading to the bedrooms.

"My apologies, Clark," Lex said.

"It's okay. This has to be hard on her." Clark rubbed his cheek. If he were anyone else, he might very well have a broken nose. "She's got a good punch for a nine-year-old."

Lex smiled proudly. "I taught her myself."

"I should have guessed." Clark shoved his hands in his pockets, suddenly shy. "You wanted to talk to me?"

"Badly enough to call you down from Metropolis, yes." Lex ushered Lex up the stairs and down the other hall to his office. "Something to drink? Or eat?"

"No. Thanks."

Lex retrieved a bottle of water from the wood-paneled refrigerator and then, to Clark's surprise, sat on the couch rather than behind the desk, and gestured to Clark to sit beside him. "I'm glad to see you, Clark. These have been trying times."

Clark sat down just out of arm's reach. "Don't bullshit me. You don't miss your dad at all."

"No. But times are still trying, nonetheless."

"I guess so." Clark looked at his hands, rubbing his thumbs together. "What do you want from me?"

"Your ears. Your mind." Clark looked up, frowning with confusion. "Why did we break up, Clark?"

Clark swallowed, remembering the long silences and too-pleasant words. "Because...it wasn't working."

"Why?" Lex leaned forward. His hands were clasped around the bottle between his knees.

"You were there, Lex, you should know."

"I never figured out why you left. I let you go, but I never *knew.*" Lex set down the bottle and stared at Clark more intently. "Why, Clark?"

"I don't want to get back together." He focused on his thumbs. He couldn't look at Lex.

"I'm not asking that of you. I'm asking why you stopped loving me."

"I never stopped that," Clark said, and God, this was the last conversation on the planet he'd ever wanted to have. Even telling his parents about him and Lex had been easier. "I just. I couldn't."

"What?"

"Look you in the eye any more." After Lex revived the old Level Three crop experiments. New safety precautions, new scientists, new everything, and Lex swore up and down they were safe, but Clark just... it was the last straw.

"You think I'm my father," Lex breathed. "I'm not."

Clark barked out a humorless laugh. "Jesus, Lex, if it quacks like a duck!"

"I quack like a duck?"

Clark jumped to his feet. "And do business like a duck, and do spin control like a duck, and kill stories like a duck--I *saw* Lois' draft and it was *not* what went in the papers, Lex!" He'd told her about the crop experiements, unable to keep his mouth shut, and she'd done some digging.

Lex was motionless on the couch. Clark shifted from foot to foot in the middle of the room, arms folded.

"He pushed me," Lex said. "Dad did."

Clark didn't say anything. Lex closed his eyes. "He pushed me," Lex continued, "and purposefully took the bullet in his chest."

"Oh," Clark said, barely voiced.

"And while he was dying, he told me he was proud of me."

"Oh..."

Lex shook his head, smiling with his lips closed tight and his eyes screwed shut. "What the *fuck* does it take to make Lionel Luthor proud of you?" Lex said. "What kind of man do you have to be?"

"I. I don't."

"That's what I wanted to know, Clark. And now I do." Lex opened his eyes slowly. "Thank you, Clark."

"Lex--"

"You can go now."

"Lex!" Clark crossed to Lex, but Lex was leaning back, shuttered and untouchable.

He took a slow sip of water. "I think my sister would make a good heir, don't you? She has a lot of spirit."

"Lex..." Clark's heart sank into his stomach.

"I'll walk you out." Lex smiled as he stood; it didn't touch his eyes. He laid a hand on Clark's shoulder. The chill of his fingers seeped slowly through Clark's shirt.


End file.
